weddingnovel Chapter 269: SHADOWS IN THE ALLEY
Chapter 269: SHADOWS IN THE ALLEY
Morning in Sanctum arrived without the customary toll of the cathedral bells. Perhaps the priests were submerged in deep, solemn prayers. Perhaps the tolling mechanism was broken. Roland didn’t care. Long before the sun had fully scaled the horizon, he stood rigidly before a bakery stall, wearing the flat expression of a man whose only thought was breakfast.
"Whole wheat. Two loaves."
The baker—an elderly woman with a dust-coated apron and flour-dusted hands—handed over the wrapped bread without bothering to speak.
Clink. Roland placed the exact change on the wooden counter. He didn’t attempt to shave off a single copper. He had learned his lesson from the Whitebridge incident.
"Are you a traveler from the north?" the old woman rasped suddenly, her wrinkled eyes scrutinizing Roland’s coat.
Roland chewed on the crust of his bread casually. "Eastmarch."
"A long journey. Where are you seeking your fortune?"
"South. Trade expansion."
The baker merely nodded in understanding, pressing no further. Strangely, she didn’t wear the ’uniform smile’ characteristic of Luminara’s citizens. Perhaps she was too ancient to care about keeping up appearances for foreigners. Or perhaps, she was simply too tired.
Roland resumed his stride. Dom trailed vigilantly behind—his distance perfectly calibrated; far enough not to intrude on his master’s privacy, yet close enough to draw steel in a heartbeat. They had worked together long enough to have bypassed the need for words.
At a corner stall, Roland stopped to purchase candles. In truth, he had no need for extra light. However, this candle merchant seemed more talkative—either because business was slow, or purely out of loneliness.
"These candles were blessed directly at the grand Cathedral, sir," the merchant pitched, wrapping the wax pillars in rough cloth. "Highly effective at warding off misfortune on long journeys."
"How much?"
"Three silver coins."
Roland handed over the coins. "Sanctum seems incredibly busy. Quite a crowd of pilgrims passing through."
"It’s crowded, yes. But..." The merchant reflexively lowered his voice, glancing left and right. "...it doesn’t feel as free as it used to. People live in fear now. Too many holy regulations. Too many robed watchdogs."
Roland kept his mouth locked tight. His instincts warned him not to pry further. He simply gave a curt nod, stuffed the candles into his satchel, and hurried away. Dom closed in beside him.
"Did you fish anything out of them?" Dom whispered.
"Hmm. Maybe. Maybe not."
The youth appeared again at the edge of the market.
Roland recognized him instantly by his awkward, hunched gait—the emaciated boy who had dropped his fruit basket yesterday afternoon and been harshly reprimanded by the shrine guards. Today, he carried nothing. He merely walked with hurried steps, his head hung low, and both hands buried deep inside the pockets of his threadbare coat.
Driven by curiosity, Roland altered his course, tailing the youth from a distance.
The thin boy didn’t head toward the market center. He turned sharply into a narrow cobblestone alley sandwiched between two soaring grey buildings. The alley plunged deeper, the light dimming, until the path finally opened into an area that certainly wasn’t printed on any official map of Sanctum.
The district of abandoned warehouses.
The timber structures here were decrepit and leaning. Wedged between the monolithic warehouses were squalid, single-room shacks. These were no pristine white limestone houses like the ones in the city center. They were merely hovels of rotting planks, gaping thatch roofs, and window frames devoid of glass. The air here smelled of decay—a mixture of damp moss, sweat, and despair.
The people in this district did not smile. They did not walk upright with the regimented rhythm of the Sanctum citizens outside. They merely sat frozen—on wooden steps, leaning against rickety doors, or curled directly on the dusty earth. Their skin was ghastly pale. Their cheekbones protruded. They were silent. Waiting for death to claim them.
At the corner of a hovel, a little girl—no older than seven—sat clutching her knees beside her coughing mother. The child’s eyes were completely hollow. No wooden dolls in her hands. No spark of life. There wasn’t a single child running around in this place.
Roland’s steps halted at the mouth of the alley. He didn’t dare step any deeper. His eyes were locked on the little girl.
Gulp. Roland’s Adam’s apple bobbed with difficulty. Suddenly, his chest felt suffocatingly tight. His memory was violently thrown back to the past. To the image of Raveena as a child. When they had first set foot on the harsh streets of Northreach. When their stomachs twisted from hunger and they didn’t possess a single copper coin.
The only difference: Roland and Raveena had each other as family. Whereas the people in this place... they were entirely alone, systematically discarded.
"My Lord," Dom’s voice shattered Roland’s reverie. "We shouldn’t waste time in a slum like this."
"I know."
"The shrine patrols won’t be pleased to see a foreigner snooping around this area."
"I know, Dom."
Roland closed his eyes briefly, burying his memories deep down, then turned on his heel. "Tch. Let’s go."
He didn’t add another word. He didn’t need to. His mind had already recorded the sheer hypocrisy of this holy city with clinical precision.
Meanwhile, in another part of Sanctum, Rianor was busy dissecting the riddle of the symbols.
This was clearly not a task to be resolved in a single blink of an eye. Each chalk symbol was etched in a different blind spot—tucked inside a stuffy alley, hidden behind the wall of a minor shrine, peering from beneath a stone bridge arch, or obscured by moss at the bottom of a dead well. They had to travel on foot, bypassing the routes of the shrine patrols, and patiently waiting for the streets to clear.
Adul walked in the center, clutching a crude map that was now covered in charcoal markings. Naya guarded the rear, her eyes moving wildly to scan every window and rooftop.
"This is the fourth symbol, sir," Naya whispered, pointing to the underside of an empty house’s window ledge. "The precision and pattern are identical to the others."
Rianor approached, pushing up his spectacles. He touched the grey chalk marks. "The material properties are identical. Mark the coordinates, Adul."
Scritch... scratch... Adul drew a cross on his map. "There are so many of them. Why go to the trouble of drawing empty circles everywhere?"
"Not everywhere, Adul," Rianor corrected sharply. "These symbols have a directed vector. Look at your map." He pointed to the charcoal dots. "The first point is at the edge of the market. The second is in the alley near our inn. The third is beneath the bridge pillar. The fourth is here. If we draw a straight line... they all converge toward the western district of the city."
"Heading straight toward the abandoned warehouse district," Naya chimed in.
"Precisely."
The silent investigation continued. The fifth symbol was found covered by creeping vines behind a small shrine’s altar. The sixth was faintly stamped on the foundation stone of a water reservoir. Rianor connected every dot in his mind. The trajectory wasn’t perfectly symmetrical—but the navigational pattern was undeniable. Like someone intentionally scattering breadcrumbs in a dark forest.
"They want to be found," Rianor murmured analytically. "But this cipher was designed to be read only by eyes that know how to search."
"What exactly... is this group we are looking for?" Adul asked anxiously.
Rianor didn’t answer. The data in his hands was not yet sufficient to formulate a complete conclusion. But he intended to dissect it to the very root.
The wave of pilgrims appeared as suddenly as a flash flood.
The crowd veered from the direction of the Cathedral road—dozens, perhaps hundreds of humans in spotless white robes surging forward, filling the width of the street. They marched in tight formation, holding lit prayer candles, chanting a holy hymn that ebbed in a low drone. It was a routine ceremonial procession that instantly choked access to the main thoroughfare.
Rianor had already stepped into the cleft of a narrow side alley. Naya and Adul were too slow to react, their bodies instantly pushed and trapped on the opposite side of the sea of white robes.
"Wait on the other side!" Rianor commanded, raising his hand to be visible to Naya. "I will inspect the end of this alley briefly!"
"Alone?!" Naya’s protest faintly pierced through the echoing holy chants.
"The alley’s dimensions are extremely short. I will return in five minutes."
Rianor didn’t wait for agreement. He turned and stepped deeper. This cobblestone alley was far narrower than the previous one—barely leaving shoulder room for a single adult male. The limestone walls felt damp and mossy. At the far end, sunlight filtered through a narrow sliver of a gap.
And right on the right-hand wall, his eyes caught something.
The seventh symbol.
It was much larger. Thicker. The chalk lines still looked fresh. Rianor pressed his finger to it, feeling the damp powder cling to his glove.
"The creator recently departed," Rianor murmured. "They are nearby."
He was about to turn back.
Two men had already stepped in to block his exit. Their clothes were tattered and smelled of rot. Their faces were tense, jaws clenched. One of them tightly gripped a rusted iron pipe. They were clearly not shrine guards, let alone members of the Inquisition. They were merely cornered, panicked outcasts.
"You’re the bastard who’s been tracking our symbols, aren’t you?!" the first man snarled. His voice shook violently—not from rage, but from pure, unadulterated fear. "Tell us, who does a bootlicking dog like you work for?!"
"I am not contracted to any faction in this city," Rianor replied coldly.
"Bullshit! You’re a filthy spy from the Church!"
"Your hypothesis is flawed—"
The man lunged frantically, swinging the iron pipe with all his might toward Rianor’s head.
Whirrr!
The Mana Glove on Rianor’s right hand instantly flared, displaying bright blue circuits that hummed low. Rianor braced his stance, prepared to deflect the iron blow and shatter the bones of his attacker’s hand.
However, before the impact could land... a shadow dropped from the sky.
The figure leaped down from the rooftop—light, agile, and highly trained. Precisely before the iron pipe could reach Rianor’s face, the figure landed flawlessly behind the attacker.
Thud! A remarkably precise elbow strike landed directly at the base of the man’s neck. The attacker collapsed unconscious to the ground. The iron pipe slipped from his grasp, clattering against the stone floor.
The second man gaped in horror. His eyes bulged at his unconscious companion, then shifted to the cloaked stranger now standing defensively in front of Rianor. Without a second thought, the man bolted, running frantically out of the alley.
Silence reclaimed the narrow corridor.
Rianor remained standing, his Mana Glove’s circuits still glowing bright, humming in vigilance.
The savior turned slowly. A hood of coarse fabric concealed her entire head—leaving only a narrow slit for her eyes. Dark brown eyes that were incredibly sharp, wild, assessing Rianor in a flash.
Without wasting a single word, her leather-gloved hand gripped Rianor’s sleeve and yanked him forcefully.
"Wait, what—"
"Shut your mouth and keep moving."
A female voice.
Rianor was half-dragged, running out of the alley. His Mana Glove was still active—yet strangely, Rianor offered no physical resistance. It wasn’t because he was outmatched in strength, but because his rationality dictated that this woman had just saved his energy, and his curiosity was far greater than his ego.
They ran zigzag through a web of small alleys, turning sharply twice, before finally bursting out into a far more desolate area. The abandoned warehouse district. The air here felt vacant, filled only by the sigh of the wind kicking up dry dust.
The hooded woman roughly pushed open a worn wooden door bearing a faded tavern sign—a decrepit structure nearly invisible from the main street.
Creeak...
Inside the dim tavern, there were only three empty round tables. An elderly man acting as the barkeep was polishing a glass behind the wooden bar counter. Squeak... squeak... The keeper looked up briefly at their hurried arrival, then returned to polishing his glass as if nothing had happened. Clearly, this wasn’t the first time such a scene had played out in his establishment.
The woman pulled out a chair and dropped into it at the furthest corner table. Rianor pulled out the chair opposite her, sitting down calmly while smoothing the rumpled sleeves of his shirt.
An awkward silence blanketed their table.
"You yanked my body as if dragging a sack of grain," Rianor noted, his tone flat and devoid of emotion.
"A sack of grain has far more brains than you," the woman retorted sharply. "A sack of grain wouldn’t foolishly wander down a dead-end alley alone just to look for trouble."
"I wasn’t looking for trouble. My task is to collect systematic data."
"Same difference! In this cursed city, trying to find out anything is a fatal mistake."
Rianor went silent, scanning his conversational partner. The fabric hood still concealed her head tightly. Only those dark brown eyes moved alertly—wary, yet Rianor detected no trace of pure hostility.
"So... who exactly are you?" Rianor asked.
The woman kept her lips locked tight.
"And what logical reason made you bother leaping down to assist me?"
"Because you were acting far too stupid to realize the danger. And because those two fools..." she gestured toward the tavern door with her chin, "...were actually going to crack your skull."
"Your hypothesis is exaggerated. They were not trained killers. Merely citizens infected by fear."
"That is precisely the point, Mr. Smart! A person cornered by fear will always do idiotic things beyond reason. Including murder."
Rianor didn’t dispute the argument. The woman’s psychological logic was highly valid.
The elderly barkeep suddenly approached, placing two wooden cups of water on the table without a sound, before retreating back to his post.
"You are highly familiar with that network of circle symbols," Rianor probed, staring directly into the dark brown eyes beneath the hood.
It wasn’t a question, but a deductive statement. The woman didn’t answer. But she also didn’t bother denying it.
"Are you part of their active faction?"
"Not in the slightest."
"Then?"
Silence hung once more. The woman stared into Rianor’s eyes for a long moment. Her brown eyes seemed to be digging for any hidden motives from this man in glasses—measuring whether her secrets were safe in his hands.
"I am nobody," the woman replied finally, her tone softening slightly. "I’m just a drifter who is sick of watching fools get beaten to death on the city streets."
Rianor wanted to press with a barrage of follow-up questions. But he was an analyst who knew when to push and when to brake. This person wasn’t going to spill any more information today. Not yet. So, Rianor merely gave a slow nod. "Thank you for the intervention."
"Keep your thanks. I had no intention of playing the hero who saved you. I was just... passing by."
Rianor raised an eyebrow. "Passing by on a rooftop two stories high?"
"My safe route happens to be up there."
The two plunged back into silence. Outside the tavern, the heart of Sanctum continued to beat mercilessly—shrine troops patrolled, pilgrims chanted, and magical light orbs flared to life even before the sun had set.