Several days had passed. However, the question that had struck Kairus’s mind like a hammer still lingered even now, as he traveled down the road.
Who should I learn from?
The Featherwing family had been annihilated. There was no one left to teach Kairus the sword.
Even if, by some incredible stroke of luck, a survivor remained, they would only be a branch family member.
Other than that, the only people who knew Featherwing swordsmanship were outsiders who had come to the family to learn.
‘There’s nothing to learn from the branch family or outsiders.’
It wasn’t some petty pride as a direct descendant. The sad truth was that there really was nothing to learn from them.
The Featherwing swordsmanship that the branch family and outsiders were permitted to learn, the Wind Forging Style, was something Kairus had already mastered.
‘Of all times to end up in prison, it had to be then!’
The timing of Kairus’s imprisonment in the labor reformation camp had been nothing short of wretched.
They called it study abroad, but in reality, he had been dragged to a foreign battlefield at the young age of thirteen. For three years, he had endured a living hell and mastered the Wind Forging Style.
After that, he was supposed to return to the family and begin learning Cloud Seizing.
But before he could even start, the family was accused of treason and wiped out, and Kairus was thrown into a labor camp.
“At the very least…”
If he could find the books the family had stored, he could attempt to teach himself.
It would be a far more difficult and treacherous path without a teacher, but that didn’t matter.
‘Father mastered Wind Forging at twenty, too.’
In fact, Kairus had mastered it even faster than his eldest brother, the heir of the family.
The issue of having no master—perhaps he could make do with the talent he was born with.
“But damn it, you can’t make do with nothing. It’s not like the branch family or outsiders weren’t taught Cloud Seizing—they simply couldn’t learn it.”
Scowling, Kairus muttered to himself as he picked up speed to close the distance with the car ahead.
The driver, glancing at him through the rearview mirror, was horrified.
‘That’s not human. That’s a monster! What kind of person runs after a car for five hours?!’
It was impossible not to question whether this was something a person could do.
He was chasing down a moving car, keeping up without falling behind for hours. The driver muttered under his breath.
“If he can do that, why the hell does he need a car and a driver?”
The reason Kairus could pull off such a monstrous feat was precisely why the branch family and outsiders could never learn Cloud Seizing.
Direct descendants of the Featherwing family underwent a procedure at birth, implanting five unique organs into their bodies.
[Air Sac, Qi Sac, Posterior Vision, Double Knee, Eagle’s Vision]
These five organs matured alongside the child as they grew.
They were the requirements for learning Cloud Seizing. Those who hadn’t undergone the procedure—branch family members and outsiders—simply could not be taught, even if they wanted to learn.
If the implants were as easy to acquire as picking something off the ground, that would be a different story. But they weren’t. Direct descendants were always prioritized.
At any rate, the reason Kairus could run after a moving car for hours without tiring was thanks to two of those implanted organs—Qi Sac and Double Knee.
The Qi Sac was an enhanced version of the birds respiratory system.
Two additional sacs connected to his lungs and airways allowed for complete, 100% air exchange within his lungs. This granted overwhelming endurance and efficiency.
Additionally, during this transformation, his circulatory system—including blood vessels and heart—became significantly more efficient.
Then there was the Double Knee.
Unlike ordinary humans, members of the Featherwing family had an extra kneecap.
The principle was similar to why ostriches could run at high speeds for extended periods.
Moreover, his ligaments and cartilage had strengthened to match the additional kneecap, and his synovial fluid was optimized for better functionality.
“Hoo…”
After sweating out a fair amount, Kairus jumped and landed back inside the car.
“Are we far from the station?”
At Kairus’s question, the driver flinched hard before responding.
“We’re almost there. We should be arriving soon.”
The driver, having witnessed a pack of wolves get shredded to pulp in an instant and a man chase after a car on foot, wanted to minimize his time spent with this monstrous human as much as possible.
With a monster sitting in the passenger seat, anyone would want to hurry. The driver was doing just that.
After some time, the outskirts of a city finally came into view beyond the road.
“This is Sachsen.”
“I hope we never have to see each other again. I’m sure you feel the same way.”
The driver had fulfilled his duty, and Kairus disembarked without a word. The moment he did, the driver sped away.
“….”
The sheer number of factories in the city was staggering, and the smoke coming from their chimneys was suffocating just to look at.
“This is dizzying.”
Watching the crowds of people moving about, Kairus felt a bit lightheaded.
The bitter air, the overwhelming noise of the city, the shouting newspaper boys—it was all an assault on the senses.
In the past six years, he hadn’t encountered as many people as he had in this brief period.
It would be strange not to feel overwhelmed.
Somehow, Kairus made it to the train station and approached the ticket booth.
“One ticket to Bennett City.”
At his request, the person behind the counter gave him a glance.
“If you’re heading to Bennett City, you’ll need to show identification.”
It seemed that only those traveling to Bennett City needed to verify their identity. Kairus complied without protest and handed over his ID.
The clerk checked the photo against Kairus’s face, then spoke.
“Eighty-five Pint. The train arrives in three hours.”
“You’re not going to tell me my seat or train car?”
At that, the clerk replied in a disinterested tone.
“What, you think third-class has assigned seats? Just find a spot and get on however you can.”
It wasn’t until the train actually arrived that Kairus understood what the clerk had meant by “find a spot and get on.”
“Fucking hell.”
If you managed to board, you could ride to Bennett City. If you failed, you were out of luck.
That was what the clerk had meant by “however you can.”
People surged forward like waves, desperately shoving their way onto the train.
With his agility and strength, Kairus barely managed to squeeze his way inside, even in the midst of the sudden chaos.
The train felt like a giant tin can.
Kairus fully experienced the feeling of being crammed like canned meat, wishing the moving train would reach its destination quickly.
Unfortunately, his wish could not come true.
“Someone save me. No, just kill me instead.”
Only after about 80 hours did Kairus finally escape from the hell known as the train.
He hadn’t been able to sleep, eat, or drink.
On top of that, he had to endure the suffocating mix of human body odor and the stench of urine and feces from those who couldn’t hold it in. The foul smell made him want to rip his nose off.
“This was barely better than solitary confinement in the reformation center.”
Everything else was pretty much the same. However, in the solitary cells of the Carlson Labor Reformation Camp, you had to factor in the kind of cold that could easily lead to frostbite.
“At least thanks to that, there were no lice or bedbugs.”
The solitary cells were so cold that even those pests couldn’t survive—they simply froze to death. But that wasn’t the case now.
Barely managing to step off the train, Kairus let out a small sigh, enduring the intense itchiness crawling over his body.
And it wasn’t over yet. The moment he stepped out of the station, he was met with a new obstacle.
A security checkpoint.
“What the hell is with this line?”
A horde of people was trying to enter Bennett City, but the guards in charge of the inspection didn’t seem to be in any hurry to let them through.
Worse yet, there were two checkpoints to get past—one run by the Balron Empire’s Security Forces and the other by the Airan Republic’s police department.
Was this what the inside of a person’s intestines looked like after suffering from severe constipation for a month?
Kairus let out a small sigh.
Waiting was something he was used to.
In the Carlson Labor Reformation Camp, even for something as trivial as using a nail clipper, it wasn’t uncommon to wait days.
But that was only because he had the luxury of time in a prison cell.
You wake up, and it’s the same cell. You go to sleep, and when you wake up again, it’s still the same prison. If you can’t cut your nails today, you just do it tomorrow. There was never any rush.
That was the daily life of an inmate serving a life sentence.
“But that’s not the case anymore.”
He had to find Nongjoyeonun and track down the lost books of his ruined family. If he managed to find them, he had to learn them somehow.
He had to enter Bennett City—the sooner, the better.
For the first time in six years, Kairus managed to have the thought, I need to hurry, and in doing so, he once again felt the sharp reality of the freedom given to him.
In the meantime, the sun had fully set, and night had fallen. A security officer from the Empire checked his watch and shouted at the waiting crowd.
“This is it for today! Anyone who hasn’t passed yet will have to wait until morning!”
A collective groan of disappointment came from the people.
“Damn it, so this is how it ends.”
One of the men, seemingly accepted to the situation, rummaged through his belongings and approached the soldiers, who were preparing to leave for the day. Kairus silently observed.
A bribe.
Or, to put it more elegantly, a magical lubricant that soothed the rough and dried-up hearts of the weary.
“Alright.”
The security officer accepted the bribe without hesitation, unconcerned that others were watching, and let the man pass.
As an officer receiving the Empire’s wages, he should have at least felt a shred of shame—or perhaps some fear of getting caught. But there was none of that.
Even in the reformation camp where Kairus had been confined, such blatant bribery was rare.
If one could pluck the hairs of his conscience and transplant them onto his head, that soldier with his glaringly bare scalp would instantly have a thick, luscious head of hair.
The man who passed the checkpoint repeated the process at the Republic’s police checkpoint. Within three minutes, he had secured passage through both nations’ inspections.
“I’m getting more and more curious about what kind of hellhole this city is.”
Even the entrance procedures were impressive enough to warrant admiration. What kind of nightmarish scene awaited inside?
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me! Why does that bastard get to pass just like that?!”
It seemed that someone was unhappy with the situation.
The security officer’s expression instantly soured at the complaint.
“If you don’t like it, then pay up too.”
If you wanted to pass quickly, you had to pay. To the security officers who had worked in Bennett City for years, this was just common sense. In fact, the mere act of questioning it was baffling to them.
“How the hell is this acceptable? You’re the Empire’s security force! How can you shamelessly take bribes like this?! You’re nothing but a pack of—”
The man couldn’t even finish his sentence.
A baton swung straight into his face.
“Khak!”
That strike was not meant to subdue him.
The moment he hit the ground, kicks and further blows followed in rapid succession.
“You little shit, shouting like that in front of me! You think I’m here to make your life easier?! Huh?!”
The man kept taking the full force of the beating. His screams of pain and groans quickly died down.
Teeth scattered across the ground, the sound of bones breaking echoed through the air. The security officer wasn’t just punishing him—he was beating him to death.
By the end, the man lay still, not even able to twitch a finger.
“Disgusting bastard.”
The officer spat on the ground and turned to the waiting crowd.
“If you don’t have money, come back tomorrow. That’s it.”
The people who had witnessed the scene didn’t react to the officer’s words.
Instead, they rushed toward the unconscious man.
Not out of kindness or concern for his life.
“Move aside, you bastard! I got to it first!”
A horde of scavengers fought over his belongings, claiming them as their own simply because they had grabbed them first.
By the time they were done, the unconscious man was nearly naked.
Anything that seemed even remotely valuable had been stripped away without hesitation.
