Chapter 54 - 47 : The Traveler’s Record (3)

Chapter 54: Chapter 47 : The Traveler’s Record (3)

By the second day, the road had begun to change. Not suddenly. There was no clear point where the city ended and the wilderness began. The change came gradually. The houses became fewer. The fields farther apart. The occasional roadside stall disappeared. Even the number of travelers seemed to decrease.

Ethan noticed it before anyone said anything. For nearly an hour, they had not passed another merchant wagon. That was unusual. The western route was supposed to be one of the city’s trade roads. Even if the bandits had disrupted it, some traffic should have remained. Yet the farther they traveled, the quieter the road became.

Ethan glanced ahead. The expedition continued at a steady pace. The state soldiers maintained their positions. Family retainers moved in organized groups. The independent fighters and cultivators traveled among them. Nobody appeared alarmed. But Ethan noticed several people looking toward the surrounding hills more often than they had earlier.

He said nothing. He simply continued observing.

A little later, they passed a small roadside structure. It appeared to have once served travelers. A simple wooden building stood beside the road, with a covered area in front where people could rest and perhaps feed their horses. Now it was empty. The sign above the entrance hung at an angle. The door had been closed for some time. There were no voices inside. No smoke rose from the chimney. Even the small yard had become overgrown.

One of the guards slowed as he passed.

"Was this place here before?"

"Yes."

"What happened to it?"

The first guard looked toward the building.

"Owner left."

"Why?"

The guard shrugged.

"Same reason everyone else leaves places like this."

He did not elaborate. The group continued.

Ethan looked back once. He remembered the roads around the city. Places like this survived because travelers needed them. If one had been abandoned, the problem was no longer limited to merchants losing goods. The road itself was losing the people who depended on it.

He made a mental note. He would record it later.

Several miles farther west, the expedition encountered something else. A wagon stood beside the road. At first Ethan thought it had simply broken down. Then he noticed the damage. One wheel had been shattered. The wooden side had been split. Several empty crates lay scattered nearby. There was no driver. No merchant. No guards. Nothing remained except the wagon and a few pieces of cargo that had apparently been left behind.

The expedition slowed. A state official approached with several soldiers. They inspected the remains briefly. One of the family retainers crouched beside the broken wheel.

"Recent?"

"Not very."

"Could have been an accident."

The official looked at the damaged side of the wagon.

"Could have been."

Nobody sounded convinced.

Ethan remained with the other cultivators. He did not need to approach. The markings on the wagon were enough. A merchant company. He had seen their symbol before. They had been one of the groups mentioned in the city. One of the wagons that had stopped using the western route.

Ethan’s gaze lingered on the broken frame. He remembered the merchant in the city saying that some groups had lost wagons. Now he was looking at what remained of one. The information in his journal had become something physical.

The expedition moved on. Nobody joked for a while afterward.

Near midday, they passed a small settlement. It was larger than the roadside structure but smaller than the towns closer to the city. Several buildings stood along the road. A few people were outside. But the settlement felt strangely empty. Some houses were closed. Several shops had their doors shut. One building had clearly been abandoned. The wooden sign above it had faded almost completely.

The expedition did not stop for long. A state official spoke with one of the residents. Ethan was close enough to hear.

"When was the last caravan through here?"

The resident hesitated.

"Can’t remember."

"You must have seen some."

The man looked toward the western road.

"Not recently."

"Why?"

The resident lowered his voice.

"People stopped coming."

"Because of the bandits?"

The man did not answer immediately. His eyes moved toward the soldiers. Then toward the hills.

"People have their reasons."

The official studied him.

"How many families have left?"

The man shrugged.

"Enough."

That was all he said. The official eventually moved on.

Ethan watched the man return inside his house. He understood the answer. Fear did not always make people scream. Sometimes it simply made them stop talking.

The expedition continued. The road narrowed slightly as the hills drew closer. Trees appeared more frequently. The open fields became less common.

At one point, Ethan noticed a small group of people standing beside a house. They watched the expedition pass. Nobody waved. Nobody approached. They simply watched.

Ethan looked at them for a moment before turning forward.

The atmosphere had changed. Not enough for panic. Not enough for anyone to give an order. But everyone could feel it. The road ahead was different from the road behind them.

The soldiers became more attentive. The family retainers kept closer to their assigned groups. Even the independent fighters had become quieter. The expedition was no longer simply traveling toward a problem. It was entering the area where the problem had already taken root.

Ethan noticed one of the officials speaking quietly with another.

"From here onward?"

"Yes."

"Then increase the spacing between the scouts."

The order was passed down without announcement. A few moments later, Ethan noticed that the men moving ahead had changed their positions.

He smiled faintly. The people leading the expedition were not careless. That was good.

He looked toward the hills. Somewhere beyond them was the territory where Black Fang’s men had been operating.

There was still no sign of the bandits. No arrows. No ambush. No shouting. Only the evidence they had left behind. And somehow, that made the approaching danger feel more real.

Ethan reached for his journal but did not open it.

Not yet.

There was still more to observe.

By late afternoon, the western road had become noticeably quieter. The last small settlement disappeared behind them. From that point onward, there were only occasional traces that people had once traveled this far.

A collapsed roadside shelter. An old fire pit. A broken fence. A few abandoned structures farther from the road. Nothing that demanded attention by itself. Together, they told a different story.

The bandits had not merely attacked caravans. They had begun to change the region around the road. People had moved away. Travelers had stopped coming. Businesses had closed. And the route that once connected the city to the western settlements had become something people avoided.

Ethan finally understood why the Prefect had called the matter more than isolated theft.

This was not simply a group stealing from travelers. They were gradually turning a functioning road into a dead one.

And if that continued, the problem would spread farther.

Ethan looked ahead.

The hills were closer now. The expedition continued toward them.

Nobody needed to say it.

They were getting close.

They stopped again before evening. This time, the camp was smaller and quieter. The surrounding terrain provided less open space. The officials spent longer examining the area before allowing the group to settle. The watches were adjusted. The camp was established.

Ethan watched the process. The farther they went, the more deliberate everything became. He understood why. They were no longer traveling simply through the western outskirts of the city. They were approaching the place where the problem existed. The distinction mattered.

After eating, Ethan sat outside his tent. The hills were dark against the fading sky. He opened his Traveler’s Record. He read everything he had written since leaving the city.

The western route. The merchants. The terrain. The people. The factions. The Azure Cloud Sect. The organization of the expedition. The changing atmosphere.

He turned to a fresh page.

Then wrote:

The city is behind us.

He paused.

The road ahead is no longer familiar.

Another pause.

Tomorrow, we begin entering the region where the bandits operate.

Ethan looked at the words. For a moment, he considered adding something else. Instead, he closed the journal. There was no need to write what he could not yet know.

The record was not supposed to predict the future. It was supposed to preserve what he had learned. Tomorrow would provide more.

Ethan looked toward the dark hills. Somewhere beyond them was Black Fang. Somewhere beyond them were the people who had disrupted the western road. And somewhere beyond them waited the next stage of his journey.

Ethan rested his hand on the closed journal. The Traveler’s Record had started as a way to remember places. Now it was becoming something else. A record of the world as he encountered it.

Ethan understood that the farther he traveled, the more valuable that record would become.

He looked once more toward the hills. Then returned to his tent.

Tomorrow, the expedition would continue deeper into bandit territory.