She had not worsened either.
Mitu considered that sufficient.
Meruem did not.
He stood beside the carriage while the old woman checked Komugi for the third time that morning, his attention divided between the examination and the road descending through the trees. Clouds had begun gathering over the eastern ridges, thin enough to let sunlight through but dense enough to alter the temperature before evening. The wind remained weak. Humidity was rising. The horse was rested. The carriage suspension had been tested under weight.
Every measurable condition favored departure.
Except the one that mattered most.
Komugi was still ill.
There would be no version of this journey in which that stopped being true.
Meruem had spent the last two hours confronting the fact from several angles and disliked all of them equally. Waiting until she recovered was impossible because recovery was precisely what Folklore was supposed to provide. Leaving while she remained unstable introduced risk. Remaining where they were introduced another risk, less visible but steadily increasing with time.
A closed position.
No winning move.
Only progression.
Mitu withdrew her fingers from Komugi's wrist and studied the face of the small watch in her palm. Komugi sat inside the carriage beneath two blankets, looking considerably less concerned than everyone surrounding her.
"Well?" Meruem asked.
Mitu closed the watch. "Her pulse is stable. No abnormal concentration around the spine. No recurrence of this morning's reversal. Temperature acceptable."
"You avoided the question."
The old woman gave him an exhausted look. "Because you keep asking questions that do not have the answers you want."
"Can she travel?"
"She can begin traveling."
Meruem's eyes narrowed at the distinction.
Mitu noticed, of course. "I am not authorizing three uninterrupted days in that carriage. We move for ninety minutes, then stop. I examine her. If everything remains stable, we continue. If not, we adapt."
"How much total distance today?"
"I don't know."
"You know the road."
"I do."
"You know the carriage speed."
"Approximately."
"You know her current condition."
"Only until it changes."
There it was again.
Uncertainty.
Meruem had discovered an increasing number of humans used uncertainty as an excuse for poor reasoning. Mitu did the opposite. She treated uncertainty as information in itself, refusing to compress variables into false precision simply because numbers would make everyone feel safer.
Annoying.
Useful.
Komugi leaned slightly toward the open carriage door. "If you two continue discussing whether I can travel while I'm already sitting in the carriage, I think eventually the horse will die of old age."
Meruem turned toward her. "You are not part of this calculation."
"I feel very included."
"You are the condition being evaluated."
"That sounds worse."
Edrin coughed into his hand and climbed onto the driver's bench before Meruem could include him in the conversation.
Mitu secured the wooden medicine case beneath the opposite seat, checked the straps around Komugi's bedding, then climbed inside. "Enough. We leave now."
The command was not directed at anyone in particular.
Perhaps that was why Meruem obeyed it.
He entered the carriage and sat opposite Komugi.
Edrin glanced back through the small opening behind the driver's seat. "Everyone alive?"
"For now," Mitu replied.
"Excellent standard."
The carriage moved.
Meruem felt the first rotation of the wheels through the floor.
A minor vibration.
Expected.
Second rotation.
Nearly identical.
Third.
Acceptable.
Only after twenty-three revolutions did he stop counting.
---
The road descended gradually from the wooded heights, following the shape of the valley rather than cutting directly across it. Had Meruem traveled alone, he could have covered the distance to the river landing before midday. Even carrying another person, he might have done so only slightly slower.
Instead the carriage moved at the pace of the horse.
For the first half-hour, Meruem considered this inefficient.
By the second, he had begun to understand why Mitu had chosen it.
The northern road would have forced them across exposed slopes where stone replaced packed earth and every wheel impact transferred upward through the carriage. This route curved constantly but remained soft beneath them. Tree roots had been cut away from the center of the path. Drainage trenches followed either side, preventing the spring rains from turning it into mud. Small stone markers appeared every few kilometers, some engraved with distances, others carrying simple symbols Meruem did not recognize.
He pointed toward one as they passed.
"A circle divided by three lines."
Mitu glanced through the window. "Flood marker."
"There is no water here."
"There will be after heavy rain."
Meruem looked back.
The forest floor sloped almost imperceptibly toward the road.
A channel.
Not visible as such until one knew what to look for.
The humans who maintained the route had not built against the current condition of the landscape. They had built against a future one.
He stored the observation.
Komugi had been quiet since departure.
Too quiet.
Meruem shifted his gaze toward her.
She sat with her head resting against the padded wall, watching the forest through the window. Since regaining her sight, she frequently did that—looked at things for no obvious purpose.
Before, observation had been functional. She listened to footsteps to identify a person. Counted breaths to measure hesitation. Mapped rooms through echoes, voices, and touch.
Vision had introduced waste.
She could stare at clouds merely because they existed.
At first Meruem had considered the habit inefficient.
Now he occasionally found himself watching what she watched.
Sunlight moved between the trees in broken patterns. The lower forest differed from the mountains they had left behind: fewer conifers, broader leaves, ferns growing thickly beneath trunks darkened by moisture. Somewhere beyond the road, water moved over stone.
Komugi turned toward him.
"You're doing it again."
"Doing what?"
"Looking where I'm looking."
"I was examining the terrain."
"Of course."
She returned to the window.
A yellow-winged insect followed the carriage briefly before disappearing between two trees.
Komugi smiled.
Meruem examined her aura.
Stable.
At least to his perception.
He had deliberately reduced his own output since departure. Mitu's warning concerning external Nen fluctuations had changed how he managed his presence around Komugi. Normally, suppressing his aura around non-hostile humans required almost no thought. Now he maintained it with greater precision, avoiding sudden variations even when his attention shifted.
Another variable controlled.
Another thing that could still fail.
"You're measuring me again," Komugi said.
Meruem did not deny it.
"How?"
"I can tell."
"That is not an explanation."
"You stop blinking."
He blinked once.
Komugi's smile widened.
Mitu, seated beside her with a book open across her knees, did not look up. "She's right."
Meruem decided silence was preferable.
The carriage continued.
---
The first stop came beside a stone bridge.
Edrin guided the horse beneath a stand of old trees, where the road widened enough for carts to pull aside without blocking traffic. A narrow stream passed beneath the bridge, clear enough that individual stones remained visible through the water.
Komugi protested when Meruem lifted her from the carriage.
Not seriously.
"I can sit by myself."
"You failed to remain standing for four seconds this morning."
"Sitting is easier than standing."
"You are not testing that distinction here."
He carried her toward a flat stone near the stream.
Mitu followed with the medical case. "Put her in the shade."
"There."
"That stone is cold."
Meruem stopped.
He had already detected the temperature difference but had classified it as irrelevant.
He reconsidered.
Then changed direction.
Komugi looked up at him. "Choosing ugly moves again?"
"No."
"You changed your mind."
"Based on new information."
"That is what changing your mind means."
He placed her on a folded blanket Edrin had spread beneath a tree.
Mitu examined her.
Pulse.
Temperature.
Pupils.
Breathing.
Then Nen.
Meruem watched the old woman's face rather than the procedure.
No tightening around the eye.
No pause.
No adjustment of her grip.
Good.
"How does she compare to departure?" he asked.
"Slightly fatigued. Nothing unexpected."
"Active circulation?"
"Normal for her current state."
"No concentration?"
"No."
"No reversal?"
"No."
Komugi looked between them. "I am beginning to feel like a carriage being inspected."
Edrin was filling water skins at the stream. "Meruem inspected the carriage less aggressively."
"That is false," Meruem said.
Edrin considered. "Actually, yes. My mistake."
Mitu gave Komugi a small cup containing diluted medicine. She smelled it and grimaced.
"What is it?"
"Something helpful."
"That sounds suspicious."
"Drink."
Komugi looked at Meruem.
He raised an eyebrow.
She drank.
For several minutes, nobody spoke.
The road remained quiet except for occasional travelers. Two farmers passed with a cart carrying baskets of pale vegetables. They glanced toward Meruem's group, assessed them as travelers resting beneath the trees, and continued without interest.
Meruem watched until they disappeared.
This was another strange feature of the human world.
Anonymity.
As King, his presence had altered every space he entered. Soldiers changed posture. Guards lowered their heads. Fear rearranged conversations before he heard them.
Here, two humans had seen him and decided he did not matter.
He found the experience unexpectedly useful.
"Something wrong?" Edrin asked.
"No."
"You were staring at those farmers."
"They ignored us."
Edrin screwed the cap onto a water skin. "Should I call them back and ask them to kneel?"
Meruem looked at him.
"Never mind."
Komugi hid a laugh behind her cup.
Meruem turned toward the stream instead.
He was beginning to suspect that traveling with humans would require tolerating an unreasonable amount of insolence.
---
They resumed twenty-eight minutes later.
This time Meruem did not count the wheel rotations.
He counted Komugi's breaths.
The road reached the valley floor near noon. Trees gave way to cultivated land divided by low stone walls. Irrigation channels followed the contours of the fields, feeding rows of grain, fruit trees, and patches of medicinal plants that Mitu occasionally identified without being asked.
She knew the region well.
Not merely its roads.
At one point she instructed Edrin to turn away from the main route onto a smaller lane bordered by willow trees.
Edrin looked over his shoulder. "The map says straight."
"The map was printed six years ago."
"And?"
"The bridge ahead collapsed three winters ago."
"Why is the road still marked?"
"Because maps don't repair themselves."
Meruem looked at the map in Edrin's hand.
Printed knowledge.
Outdated by reality.
Another limitation.
"How do you know the bridge remains destroyed?" he asked.
"I passed here last year."
"Then your information is also old."
Mitu met his gaze.
"Yes."
Meruem waited.
She smiled faintly. "Now you're learning."
He looked ahead.
Knowledge decayed.
Maps decayed.
Medical estimates decayed.
Even accurate information carried a date beyond which it became progressively less trustworthy.
The principle was obvious.
Yet he had rarely needed to account for it before. In battle, information expired in seconds; he recalculated automatically. Humans, however, constructed systems designed to preserve information for years and then occasionally forgot that preservation was not the same as truth.
Interesting.
The smaller road eventually returned them to the river.
By late afternoon, the water had widened from a mountain stream into a slow brown-green current broad enough to carry freight barges. Houses appeared more frequently along its banks. Wooden docks extended from villages where nets hung drying between poles and children ran barefoot along the mud.
Komugi had fallen asleep.
Meruem noticed before Mitu did.
Her head had tilted toward the window, cheek resting against the padding. One hand remained half-open in her lap.
He reached across and adjusted the blanket before it could slide from her shoulder.
Mitu watched him.
He noticed.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"That phrase has become statistically unreliable."
The old woman almost smiled. "You learn quickly."
Meruem looked back at Komugi.
Her breathing remained regular.
No obvious aura instability.
The first ninety minutes had passed without crisis.
Then the second.
The journey that should not have been possible was, for the moment, simply happening.
That should have reassured him.
Instead, Meruem found himself more alert.
In Gungi, an opponent who allowed several easy moves in succession was rarely becoming weaker.
Sometimes the board was merely becoming quieter before the real attack.
---
They stopped for the night before reaching Namar.
Mitu chose the place herself: a roadside inn built beside an abandoned mill, far enough from the nearest village that only travelers used it. The building was old but clean, with thick stone walls that retained the day's warmth after sunset. The river flowed fifty meters behind it, hidden by reeds.
Edrin negotiated for two rooms.
Meruem listened from across the courtyard.
The innkeeper named a price.
Edrin laughed.
The innkeeper folded his arms.
Edrin pointed toward the nearly empty stable.
The innkeeper lowered the price.
Edrin mentioned the leaking gutter over the eastern rooms.
Another reduction.
By the time the exchange ended, Edrin paid almost half the original amount.
Meruem regarded him as they carried the supplies inside.
"You could have paid the first price."
"Yes."
"You had sufficient money."
"Yes."
"Then why spend seven minutes reducing it?"
Edrin looked genuinely surprised.
"Because now I still have the other half."
"You spent time to preserve money."
"That's usually how trade works."
Meruem considered that.
Another exchange of resources.
Time for currency.
Risk for distance.
Aura for information.
Everything humans did seemed to involve converting one limitation into another.
Perhaps that was what Komugi had always understood about Gungi.
No piece possessed value independently.
Only relative to what could be obtained by moving it.
Meruem entered the room prepared for Komugi.
Mitu had already opened the window slightly to circulate air and moved the bed away from the wall. Komugi sat on the mattress, tired but awake.
She looked at him when he entered.
"We made it."
"To the first stop."
"That still counts."
"It is less than one day."
"And yesterday I couldn't stay standing for five seconds."
Four, Meruem almost corrected.
He stopped.
Komugi noticed the hesitation.
Her eyes softened with amusement.
Progress, he realized, could be measured from different starting points.
He disliked how frequently her logic survived examination.
Mitu entered behind him carrying the medicine case. "No more talking after the examination."
Komugi groaned.
"I've spent most of today doing nothing."
"You survived doing nothing. I consider it productive."
Mitu began preparing Death Judge.
Meruem moved toward the window.
Outside, darkness was settling across the river valley. The road they had followed disappeared eastward between fields and low hills. Somewhere beyond those hills lay the coast.
Beyond the coast, Whale Island.
Beyond Whale Island, separation.
Beyond separation, the Hunter Association.
And somewhere beyond every human map he had yet seen lay Folklore.
For once, the distance did not provoke impatience.
Not entirely.
They had moved.
That mattered.
Then Mitu spoke behind him.
"Meruem."
The tone changed everything.
He turned.
The old woman still held Komugi's wrist.
Her face had gone still.
Komugi was watching her.
"What?" Meruem asked.
Mitu did not answer immediately.
Death Judge's aura tightened almost imperceptibly around her fingers.
Then Meruem felt it too.
Komugi's aura had not surged.
It had not reversed.
Something stranger had happened.
For less than a second, it had vanished from his perception.
Not weakened.
Not suppressed.
Vanished.
Then it returned.
Meruem was beside the bed before the thought fully formed.
Komugi looked between him and Mitu.
"I didn't do anything."
Meruem believed her.
That was what made it worse.
Mitu slowly removed her hand.
"We are not continuing tomorrow morning."
Meruem's eyes remained on Komugi.
"Why?"
The old woman looked at him.
"Because the problem just changed again."
Outside, the river continued toward the sea.
For the first time since leaving the house, Meruem stopped thinking about how far they still had to travel.
He began wondering what, exactly, they were carrying with them.