The magistrate—a formidable figure draped in lacquered armor and an expression that suggested he had personally audited every tax defaulter in the province—fixed Ryan with a severe, unblinking glare. With the heavy, absolute finality of a security guard locking the glass doors of an office tower right at closing time, the official pointed a rigid finger at the village gates, which were already beginning to groan shut on heavy timber hinges. He demanded an immediate, itemized explanation for Ryan's anomalous foreign credentials, gesturing suspiciously at the sleek nylon fabric of his canvas messenger bag and the entirely undocumented nature of his presence in the district.
Ryan let out a quiet, bone-weary sigh—the exact, hollow sound he usually reserved for a facility manager demanding an unauthorized badge verification five minutes after his shift officially ended. Shifting the heavy bag higher on his shoulder, he maintained the placid, deadpan diplomacy of a marketing coordinator simply trying to clear a bureaucratic hurdle so he could catch his train. Reaching inside his pocket with mild, methodical patience, he pulled out a spare plastic ballpoint pen and an obsolete suburban transit card, offering them up as though they were standard corporate ID badges that had somehow gotten lost in a regional routing backlog.
The magistrate stared down at the alien plastic artifacts with deep administrative suspicion, turning the ballpoint pen over in his calloused palms as if examining an unvetted vendor invoice. The low, heavy rumble of the closing gates echoed across the cobblestones, threatening to seal Ryan inside the courtyard before he could properly log his paperwork. Offering a polite, conciliatory nod, Ryan mentally calculated his remaining transit options, wondering if he could somehow classify the entire feudal checkpoint as an unexpected, off-site networking detour.