Chapter 671: Her Chosen Route

Juna crested the outer ridge at first light with the glaive across her shoulders and Ferra puffing two steps behind.

The ruined road station squatted below them, its roof caved and every doorway gaping like a broken tooth.

"That’s the place from the buyer’s notes?" Ferra wheezed, planting her hammer and glaring downhill.

"Same chimney, same split gate."

"Then why’s the salvage crew screaming already?"

Juna’s ears snapped forward as shouts bounced out of the yard, frantic and coming from three doorways at once.

’Hajin stayed home to shake hands and sign scrolls, so this hunt is mine to lead.’

She remembered him sulking over breakfast at his stack of guild duties while she stole his last biscuit.

"Bring me back something weird," he begged, cheeks stuffed, "and don’t you dare fight anything cooler than my exhibition."

She snorted at the memory and dropped down the slope at a run, glaive low.

---

Workers bolted past the gate with crowbars, and one sobbing man pointed back toward the station’s wrecked dispatch hall.

"Something’s in there, it keeps cutting us apart through the doors!"

Juna caught his sleeve before he could flee, "How many inside?"

"One apprentice, the floor gave out under him!"

"Get everyone behind the wall and count heads, nobody goes back in until I say so."

The man nodded frantically and stumbled off, bellowing names at the crew huddled beyond the gate.

She heard it before she saw anything, a thin wet breath rising through the floorboards beneath the old dispatch hall. Then claws ticked across stone behind the second doorway, slow and patient, choosing which frightened scent it wanted to chase.

A long grey pack hunter slid out of the dark, scarred muzzle low and no pack left behind it.

Ferra hefted her hammer with a sour look, "Shit, that thing’s been herding them like sheep."

"Get the apprentice," she snapped, already stepping sideways into the yard, "I’ll take the ugly one."

"Alone?"

"It wants the weakest scent, so give it mine instead and dig fast."

Ferra spat a curse and sprinted for the hall while the hunter’s head swung after her.

Juna slashed the glaive across the leaning gate post, laying the first solar anchor there in a hot gold line. The hunter flinched toward the light and turned from Ferra, its yellow stare locking onto the wolf in its yard.

’Good dog, look at me, the tasty one with the big stick and the bad attitude.’

She ran a short tight loop across the cracked courtyard, keeping every dangerous edge far from the hall’s open floor. The hunter paced her along the inside line, testing every broken doorway for a shortcut back toward the fallen worker.

Inside the hall, Ferra’s hammer bit through rotten planks around the trapped apprentice, "Hold on, kid, I’ve got your arm, stop wriggling like a fish!"

"I-I can’t feel my foot!"

"Good, then it won’t complain when I yank you!" Ferra snarled, bracing her heels.

Juna reached the second anchor point and planted her foot, but the hunter stopped dead before the marked lane.

It sniffed the warm line on the stones, then bared its teeth and refused the final step.

"Oh, you’re clever," she growled, tail lashing behind her, "clever things still bleed."

It lunged straight at her instead, jaws wide and slavering for her throat.

She met it head-on, slamming the glaive shaft into its chest and twisting before the claws could reach her ribs. The hunter tore free and swiped again, and she pivoted low, driving the blade’s heel down hard across its foreleg.

Bone cracked loud enough to echo off the dead chimney and rattle the loose shutters.

The hunter shrieked and wheeled on three legs, scrambling straight toward the hall where Ferra was hauling the apprentice upward.

’Not her, you mangy bastard, the route is mine and you’re standing in it.’

Juna sprinted the last stretch while it turned, and her final cut joined the anchor behind its flank.

[ Daybreak Path | Two anchors joined | Stored solar energy released ]

Stored dawn ripped along her traveled route and caught it mid-stride, carving through its shoulders before the doorway.

It slid across the stones and stopped two paces from Ferra’s heels, smoking and finally still.

[ Juna | EXP gained: 25,000,000 | 45,000,000 / 187,500,000 toward Wing Six ]

[ Shared host credit | 25,000,000 EXP | Host pool: 1,045,000,000 ]

Ferra stared at the carcass with the apprentice dangling from her fist like a soggy sack of meal.

"You cut that close."

"I cut it exactly where I meant to," Juna sniffed, wiping the blade, "is he breathing?"

"Breathing, crying, and his ankle’s twisted, but the stupid kid’s alive."

The apprentice coughed dust and pointed shakily into the hole beneath the broken floor.

"There’s something down there, it’s metal, and it’s still bolted together."

---

Ferra dropped into the pit before anyone could stop her, cursing the dust while Juna held a lantern high above. A long fitting stretched beneath the floor, older than the walls, with a clean maker’s strip riveted along its side.

The strip sat over a repaired joint where newer hands joined fresh metal onto the ancient piece.

"Well, damn me twice," Ferra muttered, brushing grit away with her thumb, "I know this joining, it’s proper craft, the kind my old masters taught."

"And the mark?"

"That’s the problem, the old part carries the road’s triangle brand, but the repair stamp isn’t anything I’ve ever seen."

Juna crouched lower, her ears twitching at the faint scrape of Ferra’s nail across the stamp.

"Someone came back and fixed it after the road builders left?"

"This fed the old bridge line, and somebody kept it working long after they were gone," Ferra growled, scowling at the strange stamp.

"I won’t guess the hand, so I want a living road smith to read it before we touch anything else."

The lantern swung as Juna took a charcoal rubbing of the strip’s outline, and the apprentice limped away.

---

The garden lantern glowed against the evening while Hajin sprawled across the bench, rereading the shared credit on his HUD.

"Twenty-five million just dropped on me while I was signing papers!"

He flung both arms wide, nearly knocking the teapot over, "Am I a genius or what?"

"You sat," Juna deadpanned.

"I sat magnificently, thank you, with excellent posture and only two naps."

She rolled her eyes and dropped beside him, then reported every step of the station fight in blunt order.

[ IronVanguard: Her report says one leg broken, then the stored cut, that’s a clean hunt. ]

[ HearthKeeper: Ferra got the kid out first, protect that grumpy smith at all costs. ]

[ Seoul_Tactician: Repaired after construction means somebody maintained that road system, this is huge. ]

[ ashley(mod): Reminder, we only know the fight from Juna’s report, there’s no footage of it. ]

Hajin tore open a staple pack from yesterday’s resupply and offered her the first honey biscuit without a word.

"Claim accepted," she murmured, taking it.

Her tail swished slowly against the bench as she leaned into his shoulder, crunching while the lanterns flickered over them.

"So you really didn’t fight anything cooler than me?" he whispered, nudging her ribs with one elbow.

"A three-legged dog with good manners."

’He smells like ink and tea, which beats a dead hunter by a lot.’

"Rude, I’m telling Ferra you said I’m less impressive than a dog."

"She already agrees."

Ferra stomped through the garden gate with soot still streaking her jaw and both fists jammed in her apron.

"Before anyone asks, no, I’m not guessing that stamp tonight," she grumbled, jabbing a finger at the rolled rubbing in Juna’s lap, "somebody on that road still repairs things, and I want their hands, not your chat’s theories."

"Then we go find a road smith who’s still breathing," Hajin declared, thumping his chest.

"Bloody right we do."

He cackled into the night while she settled her head lower, and the strange repair stamp waited on Juna’s rubbing.