“Miss? Hey, Miss. Wake up.”

  Ji-eun was jostled awake by a large man standing over her. Over his shoulder he held an open umbrella. Rain drizzled against the thin tin around her.

  “Y’know, I only do this route once a day at best Miss. Nobody’s coming round this way anymore, so I figured you’d appreciate not missing the bus.”

  Slowly, Ji-eun stood from the shelter and rose to meet the man. She didn’t meet the subtle tension that crept into his posture.

  “Thank you,” she said as she looked the man over.

  He wore a simple button up shirt with an emblem embroidered across the breast. A nametag was pinned underneath it.

  The bus driver stood awkwardly for a moment under the shelter.

  “… Shall we get going?” Ji-eun suggested.

  “Oh, yes, of course! Sorry, Miss!” Hoisting hi umbrella, the driver led towards his bus, that same emblem painted along its side.

  Like every bus Ji-eun had been on, the inside was clean but distinctly musty. The fabric was decorated with a nonsensical pattern. Every seat was empty.

  “You said you do this route once a day?” Ji-eun asked. “Why, if nobody ever uses it?”

  The bus driver perked up at that.

  “Well, y’see, the route is still listed with the company, so someone has to do it. But it’s so far out that none of the other drivers want to take it! But y’see, I do the night shift, so I use this empty route as my break from drunks and partygoers. And it takes so long that before you know it the shift is over! Pretty smart, right?” He said with a self-satisfied grin. “Ah, but don’t tell my bosses that.” He winked.

  Ji-eun couldn’t help but smile a little. She had forgotten that ordinary people existed. People who weren’t stuck up in their won mind games. This was just a man doing his job, finding ways to keep sane through it all.

  Ji-eun would never find that kind of life now.

  She found a seat close to the back as the engine hummed alive beneath her. She leant against the window and watched as trees began to pass by. Cool air blew from overhead. Hardly necessary, but it helped with the stuffiness in the cabin.

  A night’s rest had calmed Ji-eun down. Things seemed… simpler now. Less dire, at least. For starters, she had a clear goal: head north. Ji-eun had never met another Demon before, but her Elders had to know more than she did. They would know what to do.

  To do that she needed money. Unfortunately, all she had on her was, well, nothing expect the clothes on her back, actually. Her training wear was fine; a tank top and track pants were not the worst clothes to be stuck with. That still left the question of how she would make money. And, more importantly, if she was safe to stay so close to the Sect.

  Ji-eun knew that as a Demon she would be hunted if anyone ever found out. That was a key detail though: they had to find out first. And judging by the fact an army of cultivators did not charge down the mountain last night with their swords held high, she was probably in the clear. Nobody had spotted her so far, so all she had to do was keep her qi neatly inside her and try not to drag any attention to herself. The Sworn Sword Sect might try looking for her anyway, she reasoned, so it was better to play it safe.

  Which brought her to a final conclusion. She should stay in the city. From personal experience, it was easier to get lost in a crowd than it was in a forest. If anybody from the Sect was after her, whether because they thought she had some ‘debt’ to pay off or because she got found out, they’d have a harder time finding a single girl in a city of millions. And money was hopefully easier to come by that way as well.

  Trees disappeared as the bus passed over a bridge, revealing the misty skyline of Cloudrest in the distance. Even through the heavy rain, lights shone from the myriad of skyscrapers that gave the city its name. The Clouds, so high above, lay against the tallest buildings, as if held up by the pillars of steel and glass. Ji-eun felt her eyes go wide. She had spent her whole life in the farthest reaches of the countryside. Their sheer size was a sight to behold.

  —

  The drive into Cloudrest took a lot longer than Ji-eun expected. All the while, the buildings on the horizon continued to grow taller and taller. But eventually the driver pulled to a deserted stop along the cities edge. With a hiss, the doors swung open, and the driver came back to see her out. She was the only one aboard, after all.

  “How much is the fee?” Ji-eun asked with trepidation.

  “Oh, you don’t gotta worry about that, miss! This’s an Imperially financed route. It’s free to all citizens of the Great Empire!”

  She really should have thought about that before boarding the bus.

  The pair stepped out the bus and under the cover of the stop. Rain drizzled against the thin roof. Slow streams followed the gutters down the road.

  “Well, best of luck, miss! Hope you enjoyed the ride!”

  “Wait, before you go, um. Do you know where I could get a job?”

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  The bus driver blinked at her, confused for a moment.

  “I don’t know what kind of job a cultivator like you would be looking for, miss.”

  Ji-eun tensed. Her back straightened slightly.

  “How did you know I’m a cultivator?”

  The bus driver chuckled to himself.

  “Well that’s easy. You came down the mountain of the Sworn Sword Sect.”

  “Elaborate, please,” Ji-eun asked.

  “No need for the fancy language miss,” he smiled. “Well, nobody uses that route anymore. Anybody who goes up that mountain has enough money to afford a more private means of transport. Same if they come back down. But, by law, we still have to run it. No normal, or I mean mortal, folk bother going there anymore. So I figure, a woman shows up at the stop who I most definitely did not drop off, she’s probably from the mountain; which means she’s from the Sect; which mean’s she’s a cultivator.” He paused and looked her up and down. “And, it’s a cold day today, but you’re wearing nothing but a tank top and still aren’t shaking. I’m in my winter uniform and I’m still cold!”

  “… astute.”

  “My Imperial aint the best miss, I don’t know what that means.”

  Ji-eun smiled. A few months ago she wouldn’t have either. Those Sworn Sword idiots loved their complicated characters.

  “Clever. Smart. It’s a compliment.”

  “Then thank you miss, and thank you again for taking the time to explain,”the bus driver said with a bow.

  Ji-eun relaxed.

  “And about that job?”

  The bus drivers stood silent a moment in thought, hand on his chin.

  “In all honesty, I think you’ll struggle to find anything. The average folk try to avoid cultivators, y’see, not hire them. Maybe there’s a law against it,” he shrugged. “I don’t really know. I’ve been a bus driver for over forty years now, miss. You should go speak to someone at City Hall, or maybe a Ministry. Cloudrest is big! I’m sure there’s someone willing to take a cultivator.”

  Ji-eun nodded and bowed.

  “Thank you for your time. And stay safe driving in the rain.”

  “No, thank you, miss! Best of luck!”

  She watched as the bus drove away. Before leaving, the bus driver pointed her in the direction of a train station. Even if she couldn’t afford a ticket, there would be a map down there that could point her in the right direction. She stepped out into the rain and noted the strange feel of it against her skin. Each drop was felt with perfect clarity, but the chill she knew to expect never came. It didn’t help that her own qi recoiled slightly at every passing breeze, like an ache that never quite went away. But the rain was mundane. It didn’t bring any added discomfort, it would just take some time to get used to her new tolerance.

  Maybe now she really could sleep out in the snow and be fine. Not that she wanted to test that anytime soon.

  Down the street and two left turns later, Ji-eun was still marvelling at the scale of everything around her. None of these buildings were nearly as tall as the monoliths she had witnessed from afar, but still, they dwarfed the small businesses she had grown up around. She was one of the few people on the street, and belatedly, the realisation struck her that she stuck out like a rusty sword. Everybody she passed wore raincoats or carried umbrellas to protect their clothes. She walked comfortably down the street in active wear freely soaking in the rain. New clothes would have to be a priority after all.

  The station was underground. Rainwater drained neatly into side channels down the stairs, creating an impromptu water feature for passersby. Electric lights — real electric lights! — illuminated the old concrete subway. Painted like a mural against the wall was a map of Cloudrest and its major train lines, each illustrated in a different colour. A red circle highlighted where she was: the outskirts of the city, at what looked to be a minor station for the neighbourhood. Her hometown didn’t have a passenger train, so she couldn’t be sure.

  A note in the corner said the map was not to scale, but if the mural was even half accurate, Cloudrest was huge. Ji-eun wasn’t sure she could make it to the city centre on foot in a single day of walking, maybe not even two. A rattling came from the tunnel, wind whistling through the underground station. A train rolled past the platform and came to a stop, barely a quarter of its length fitting along the platforms edge. What few people stood around the platform stood and boarded. Ji-eun made a decision.

  With a practiced poker face, she boarded like everybody else. It was her first time on a train. Would somebody come by and look for tickets? Were there cameras? Was it just an honour system? God, she was already a fucking fugitive, now she was deliberately breaking the law and was this even a good idea? The doors slid closed with a beep. She maintained her mask.

  Around her, everybody was preoccupied with personal devices. Ji-eun had never owned a PDA, but a lot of others in her hometown had. Looking around, everybody here had one open, screens glowing. She kept her eyes trained out the window, pretending that everything was normal.

  Looking at literally nothing out the window quickly got boring, so she turned inward. Ji-eun brushed her will against the qi inside her. It felt like an ocean, but she knew it was little more than a puddle compared to those in the Sect. With a deep breath, she tried to shift her qi further inward, away from the world around her. To keep it from leaking into the world around her and giving her away, she would lock it under her skin. Slowly, the discomfort of her qi against the world begun to fade. It didn’t disappear, but it definitely improved. Ji-eun was glad there was a way to make that ache go away.

  She opened her eyes and tried to turn her attention away, but kept the lid on her qi. It was uncomfortable in a new way now, like keeping her chest clenched a little too tight. Her technique could definitely do better, she thought. Maybe her Elders in the North would have some proper guidance on hiding her qi, instead of relying on instinct and innovation as she was?

  From a speaker, a robotic sounding man — maybe he was a robot — announced the next station. The train rolled to a stop. Ji-eun straightened as others boarded, but nobody paid her any mind. It would be another few stops before her station. The pattern repeated. The man, who was almost certainly a robot, announced the station. People boarded and alighted. Ji-eun kept her position standing. Someone joined her in standing and reached for a hand hold she hadn’t noticed. Belatedly, she realised the whole trip she had been just standing next to a handrail. She grabbed it. Hopefully nobody had noticed.

  The train slowly rolled up to speed again. Abruptly, light filled the windows as the tunnel finally came to an end. They were passing over a river now, wide as a lake. The overcast sky threw the river into a gloomy light. Waves crashed against each other, rocking boats big and small. City lights peered out from the distance.

  A crash came from above, like something landing heavily against the roof.

  “Tch. Damn runners,” said a man sitting to the side.

  Ji-eun squinted and concentrated. She pushed through the discomfort and threw out her qi sense. Above was a qi signature surging against the world. Her breath caught in her throat. But before she could panic, the signature darted away towards the front of the train.

  “Excuse me, sir? You said ‘runners’?” She asked the annoyed man.

  He glanced up from his PDA and looked her up and down.

  “Not from around here?”

  “No, sir,” she gave him a slight smile.

  The annoyed man sighed.

  “That bang just now was a runner. They’re cultivators who got kicked out of their Sect for causing trouble, so now they come down here to the lower realm and cause trouble for us little folk.”

  “But why do you call them runners?”

  “That’s how they earn a living. They run from one end of the city to the next delivering packages or doing odd jobs. Doesn’t sound too bad, does it?” His tone raised a pitch. “But cultivators are trouble magnets, girl. Wherever they go, something goes wrong. Why people don’t just use the Ministry approved postal service, I don’t know. I pay my taxes like a good citizen—”

  Ji-eun promptly stopped listening to the man’s rant. He didn’t even realise.

  After several minutes, the train entered the underground on the other side. The train came to a stop, and Ji-eun got off along with several others. She was interested in these runners, and the qi signature she felt earlier was still nearby.