The Moon That Swallows
Steno stepped back and immediately opened her inventory, drawing out a spear taller than she was.
She seized it with both hands and swung.
Whoosh—!
The tip of Steno’s spear shot toward Minel like a bolt of lightning.
Minel snapped his head back, letting the blade skim just beneath his chin, then immediately swept Silence sideways to cut at her arm.
Metal rang as the spear shaft intercepted the sword.
Crash—!
The weapons met and a clear, ringing note sang out.
Steno locked the shaft against her body and spun it like a whirlwind, aiming for Minel’s waist. He dropped low; the spear sliced empty air. In the same breath Silence rose and grazed the shaft, and the scream of metal tore through the clearing.
Clang—!
Silence was Level 5. Steno’s spear seemed no lesser.
She refused to yield the initiative, twisting the spear and swinging again. The air itself split; wind exploded outward. Minel raised his blade, bled off the force, and slipped aside.
“Haaah…!”
Steno sucked in breath and thrust three times, then four in rapid succession. The spear tip stabbed past Minel’s shoulder, his ribs, then empty space—yet each time it slid just wide of the mark.
Boom!
The spearhead buried itself deep in the earth. The dirt cracked open and dust billowed upward. Minel lifted his sword for Steno’s jaw, but she twisted the shaft up and caught the blow. The shock of impact raced through both their grips and sank into bone.
Whoosh—!
Steno hoisted the spear high and swept it in a great arc. Minel retreated three steps and avoided the tip, but the very ends of his bangs were sheared away and fluttered into the air.
“N-no! The wildness will rise!”
Riale’s cry was raw with panic.
Minel paid it no mind and closed on Steno once more. When her spear came in low he bent his wrist and drove the sword down at a slant. The shaft slammed upward to absorb the shock, but the rebound split open Steno’s palm and blood sprayed.
“Kh…!”
Too long without the spear; the calluses had vanished. She gritted through the pain and drove forward again. The spear tip surged like successive waves, pressing Minel hard. He turned, let the blows glance off his blade, and opened a gap—yet he did not thrust. The point only brushed the nape of Steno’s neck and left no wound.
Their footfalls hammered in sequence. The shriek of steel and the roar of wind tangled until the clearing was full of them. Minel handled the sword with unchanging breath; Steno wrung every ounce of strength from her body to swing the spear.
As time stretched, the difference became stark. Steno’s shoulders sagged under their own weight; the tip of her spear slowed. Her arms trembled and her breathing fractured. She had rested too long; her stamina simply would not hold.
Yet Minel never overwhelmed her.
No—he refused to.
“You…”
Steno finally understood. He was deliberately matching her rhythm. He could have cut her down at any moment, yet not once had he done so. He never set the edge; he received every strike with the flat alone. As if it were a dance, he took every one of her attacks and opened the path for her.
Her heart pounded. Her vision swayed.
She poured the last of her strength into one great swing. The air tore; the atmosphere detonated. The blade carved only emptiness.
Crash—!
The shaft struck the ground and rang heavily. She could hold on no longer and let the spear fall.
“Haa… haa…”
Steno gasped, dropped to her knees.
By now the wildness should have boiled over and turned her into a monster. Combat instinct should have cried for blood, tension should have shredded her muscles, and the self inside her mind should have grown faint.
And yet—
Steno’s eyes were clearer than they had ever been.
“…!”
Everyone watching felt it, and so did she. Her mind was calmer than at any other moment. Her heart raced like mad, but her thoughts were ice. In place of wildness, reason stood firm.
Beside her, Riale whispered in shock.
“That’s impossible… We’ve avoided even the smallest argument until now…”
She ran to Steno and touched her sister’s face with trembling hands. No matter how carefully she searched, there was no sign of wildness. Steno waved a hand as if to say she was fine, gently reassuring her.
Minel watched them in silence, his gaze still perfectly composed after the fight.
Hina, who had been observing from the side, turned to him.
“How did you know? That fighting wouldn’t build up the wildness?”
“She said she was bored.”
“What?”
“That’s exactly why it piled up.”
The four of them—everyone except Minel—stared at him with identical faces: complete incomprehension, and the silent demand that he explain at once.
Under every gaze Minel continued.
“I used to keep a cat.”
“A… a cat?”
“When it got bored, it got stressed.”
“Ah…”
“Steno looked the same.”
At that, Steno shouted in pure disbelief.
“So what you’re saying is—you just played with me like some pet?”
“You feel better, don’t you?”
“…”
Steno fell silent again. She could not deny the clean, open sensation of something long jammed finally sliding free. And it was equally certain that the wildness had found no foothold amid that clarity.
Hina spoke.
“Then the reason everyone on the 4th Floor has to suppress their wildness isn’t because there’s something here…?”
“It’s because there’s too little.”
Minel walked slowly toward Steno. She eyed him with wary suspicion until he abruptly held out his hand. She looked him up and down once, then took the hand and rose to her feet.
“The idea that wildness rises from boredom… I never once considered it. I was always trying not to do anything extra.”
“Something Seus told you?”
At Minel’s question Steno’s expression shifted oddly. She glanced at Riale, hesitated, then answered.
“W-well… yeah. My wildness control was falling apart, so I asked. He said to drink the tea often and keep my mind and body as calm as possible… But isn’t that just common sense?”
Riale cut in suddenly.
“Do you think the mayor did it on purpose?”
“Who knows.”
“…”
Minel turned his face toward the sun. The brilliant disc hung fixed in one place in the sky, burning without end. Whether it breathed and lived like the moon, he could not tell; the glare hid everything.
He looked back at Steno.
“What happens when someone becomes a monster?”
“What?”
“There aren’t any on the 4th Floor.”
It was now confirmed that the absence of monsters here was not because wildness did not exist. Just as on other floors, wildness accumulating turned people into monsters—so why were there none?
Steno shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
“What about you?”
Steno flicked a glance toward Riale. Riale, flustered, shot her sister a look and then shook her head hard.
“I-I must have seen it wrong back then, Unnie. Something like that can’t be real. I must have had a weird dream and gotten mixed up.”
“I’ve thought the same until now. But this kid’s sharp. He might figure something out. So tell him exactly what you told me. Don’t leave anything out.”
Riale hesitated a long while. Minel simply waited in silence, and at last she opened her mouth.
“It’s about the man who ran in one direction for three months. When we first saw him he was already half-mad—couldn’t even hold a conversation. Mayor Seus said he’d obsessed over finding the exit until the wildness piled up too high. That’s why we gave up too, in the end.”
Her voice dropped.
“It was a pitch-black night. No one around. The roads, the buildings—everything was soaked in black. The only thing you could see was the full moon hanging in the sky. And that man was standing on a rooftop, staring up at it.”
Riale fretted at her hair with trembling fingers and went on.
“Then all of a sudden he lost to the wildness and turned into a monster. His body became like a giant dog, and his face twisted so completely you couldn’t even tell where the eyes were. It was grotesque.”
She drew a shaky breath.
“The monster howled, and the air itself shook. I could feel the road under my feet vibrating. A-and then… in that moment the moon—the moon…”
Riale glanced at everyone, then spoke in a cracked voice.
“It… opened its mouth. The surface of the moon split wide, and inside were things like teeth… or maybe rocks, but they glittered sharp at the same time. Like a gigantic maw…”
She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head.
“The monster was still roaring, but it was pulled straight up. No one was grabbing it—like a black hole was sucking it in. And then… in a single instant the moon swallowed the monster whole. It didn’t even chew. Just gulped it down.”
Riale’s whole body shuddered.
“After it swallowed… the moon went back to its normal face. As if nothing had happened. But I knew. That it wasn’t just a moon. That it was always watching us… And then my head hurt so badly…”
Emotion overcame her; she could say no more and trembled violently. Steno gathered her into an embrace and continued the story in her place.
“When morning came Riale wouldn’t wake up beside me. I forced her awake and she came to like someone who’d fainted. We went looking for the man who’d turned into a monster in the dream—but he’d vanished completely. Only the car was left.”
She rubbed Riale’s back and spoke again.
“Mayor Seus said it happened because of the car, so we should get rid of it. Having a way to go far made him try, and that drove him mad. I agreed with that. So instead of keeping the car we decided not to look for the 5th Floor entrance. I couldn’t risk Riale going mad too.”
Minel read the truth in Steno’s words. If what she said was accurate, destroying the car—as Mayor Seus had advised—was the safest choice. The fact that she had kept the vehicle until now might mean that somewhere deep in her chest she still hoped someone would use it to find the way to the 5th Floor for them.
He asked Riale,
“Did the moon look strange to you after that?”
Riale glanced at Steno again. Steno squeezed her shoulder in silent permission. Emboldened, Riale swallowed dryly and nodded.
“It looked a little wrong. Like it might come alive and open its mouth the way it did in that dream… Seeing that image overlaid on the real moon was too hard…”
“So ever since then she won’t look at the moon at all. We covered every window that shows the full moon.”
Minel kept his silence and turned to Hina. Her eyes were already as wide as they could go. The words Minel had spoken the night before and what she had just heard from Riale lined up far too well.
He looked back at Steno and Riale.
“I have a few more questions.”
His gaze had settled low and heavy; his expression shone with iron resolve. Watching him, Steno felt certain that Minel really might discover the way to the 5th Floor.
“Ask anything.”
“First—the man who traveled in one direction for three months. How did the sun look to him? It isn’t fixed in one place, is it?”
With that question Minel began a long string of others, and Steno answered every one to the full extent of what she knew.