Chapter 59: Megmura - 3
The journey to Megmura was a blur of days and nights, spent mostly in silence, punctuated by Herald’s terse instructions and my own frantic internal monologue. We moved with a relentless pace, avoiding main roads, sleeping under the skies in concealed clearings, always vigilant. My body, still recovering from that bandit duel, ached constantly, but the physical discomfort was a mere feel compared to the thoughts brewing in my mind.
I kept glancing at Herald as we walked, he was somewhat of an ominous presence beside me. My gaze lingered on his profile. What kind of place was Megmura to shape such a man? A man who wielded terrifying power with casual brutality, who spoke of centuries-old wars and cults as if they were everyday occurrences.
From the novel, I knew Megmura was a backend province of Ostina, a remote, unremarkable territory. But it had been so long since I’d read Hero’s Vow, and my memories of its scenery were frustratingly vague. I tried to recall any specific details, any landmarks, anything that might give me a clue about what awaited us. Nothing. Just a blank space in my mental map of Ostina. I just wished for the place to be at least habitable, a place where I wouldn’t immediately face another life-threatening scenario. My current situation offered little reassurance.
The landscape around us gradually shifted. The lush forests and rolling hills of central Ostina gave way to drier, more barren terrain. The air grew dustier, the trees sparser, replaced by scrubland and rocky outcrops.
Then, Herald stopped. He didn’t say anything, just halted abruptly. I nearly walked into his back.
"We have reached," he stated, his voice flat, devoid of any fanfare.
I turned, anticipation warring with dread in my chest. What I saw was utter desolation. Megmura. It was even worse than my most pessimistic imaginings. This wasn’t just a backend province; it was the back end of nowhere. The ’town’ was a collection of ramshackle buildings, leaning precariously, their roofs patched with mismatched materials. The roads were little more than dirt tracks, churned into mud in some places, choked with dust in others. The air hung heavy with the stench of stale alcohol and something else, something cloying and metallic that made my stomach churn.
Men lay sprawled on the roads, clearly drunk, their clothes ragged, their faces slack. Women, their eyes hollow, openly engaged in prostitution in the grimy alleyways, their whispered offers sliced through the filth and noise.
It was a place stripped bare of dignity, of hope. A place where desperation clung to every shadow.
And then, something caught my eye, something that sent a fresh wave of revulsion through me. A cage. A large, crude cage, fashioned from thick, rusted iron bars, sat in the middle of what passed for a town square. Inside, huddled together, were young adult females. Their bodies were slender, almost emaciated, and they were chained – thick, heavy iron chains tied from their necks to their legs and arms, binding them tightly. Their eyes, wide and terrified, darted around, reflecting the hopelessness of their situation.