The gates had already been opened by Vandread, who quietly slipped through, closing the metal-reinforced entrance behind him.
Alone, he was left with his thoughts, worried about what Vandread could've found within the bounds of Larundog.
A nauseating wait ensued; he could only sit there against the tree, listening to the silence of the lifeless road while watching the front gates, hoping to see the abrasive man return from their threshold.
He hugged his knees close to his chest as it began to cool down; the sun shifted, settling from daytime into dusk as the little sunlight that bled through the leaves had been whisked away.
It was that time.
"--" He looked towards the gate.
There was nothing. It was almost sanity scraping; watching those gates and expecting something to happen, for anybody to come through them.
Alas, it was simply solitude; there was nobody coming down the road or coming back from within the city.