The Moonless Lake (1)
From downstairs, the innkeeper's voice drifted up, announcing that dinner was ready.
It seemed evening had slipped in unnoticed.
I walked slowly toward the dining hall, weighing various plans in my mind.
"How is it? It's the best room in our inn."
The innkeeper struck up a conversation, wearing a genial smile.
Aside from the fact that a beast was living in the lake, it was indeed a quite excellent room, just as he said.
Though the dark clouds made it hard to tell, the room had good natural light, and the bedding and cleanliness showed a great deal of care.
"Yes. If I had the time, I'd love to stay here indefinitely."
I nodded in response.
It seemed to be a highly satisfying answer.
With a face full of pride, the innkeeper wished me a pleasant evening before humming a tune and disappearing back into the kitchen.
The dining hall was already packed with guests.
I found an empty seat, sat down, and watched the crowd while waiting for my food.
I saw people inhaling some unrecognizable dish straight from their bowls, others snickering over trivial jokes, and families laughing and chatting warmly.
It was a peaceful sight.
No matter how much I brooded over it, a proper solution wasn't going to present itself.
For the duration of dinner, at least, I needed to clear my cluttered head.
"I gave you a little more than the usual portion!"
The innkeeper whispered just loud enough for the neighboring table to hear as he brought over my food.
Any more kindness and the sheer pressure of it would probably give me indigestion.
I offered a polite smile, thanked him, and decided to focus on my meal.
The aroma of fish soup, seasoned with a well-balanced blend of spices, wafted up.
Just as I scooped up the first spoonful and was about to bring it to my mouth—
"..."
An all-too-familiar, foreign lump caught my eye.
Something black showing through a translucent, smooth surface.
It was the egg of a serpent beast.
Soup made from beast eggs, stir-fried beast eggs, grilled beast eggs skewered on sticks—they were laid out on every single table.
My eyes met those of a man at the next table, who was greedily chewing and swallowing his food.
Seeing my expression, the man spoke with an amused grin.
"It's like that the first time! It's a local specialty you can only taste in our village, so just close your eyes and take a bite. The owner here is a fantastic cook, so you'll definitely enjoy it."
"This is..."
"Eggs! Eggs! A wonderful food bestowed upon our starving village by our Guardian Deity!"
With that, he deliberately gulped down a mouthful of broth and a beast egg, chewing thoroughly.
He closed his eyes, savoring it to the very end as if tasting the finest delicacy.
"Even my kids eat it. A healthy young man like you shouldn't be so squeamish!"
"...Excuse me."
I immediately put down my spoon and slipped out of the inn.
Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that the entire village, including the inn, was using beast eggs as their staple food.
My head spun at this completely unexpected turn of events.
It wasn't as if this had never happened in the past.
We used to roast and eat the carcasses of the beasts we hunted, so eggs were just another easily obtainable source of food.
The problem was that these were the eggs of a serpent beast.
Only now did I understand why the villagers worshipped the beast so fervently.
I have to move faster than I thought.
Less than a month had passed since my hometown was first attacked.
But Gyal had already devoured countless beast hearts.
There was no way to know when the phantoms of the past had awakened.
If so, how long had these villagers been living like this?
A month? Two months? Or much longer than that?
"Ahahaha!"
The happy laughter echoing from every corner now felt deeply unsettling.
Children playing without a care in the world.
Fishermen humming as they shook out their nets.
Drunkards laughing, chatting, and then getting into a brief fistfight—everything looked perfectly natural and peaceful.
As if nothing was wrong at all.
In a situation where a beast crawled at the bottom of the lake and people were vanishing one by one...
There was no way they could act so nonchalantly.
Hallucination? Or brainwashing?
In the first place, no matter how powerful a serpent beast's hallucinations were, it couldn't control an entire village all by itself.
No, it didn't even need to.
The starving people were willingly offering themselves up as hosts.
There was no reason for the beast to waste its energy.
Indeed. Hosts.
The larvae of the serpent beast lived parasitically inside human bodies.
They would nestle anywhere within the body, granting their hosts mild, pleasant hallucinations.
It was the same even if they were boiled or roasted.
Chewing them thoroughly did absolutely nothing to kill them.
With adults and children alike devouring serpent beast eggs three times a day, there was no way anyone here remained sane.
I had experienced this exact situation once before.
I let out a sigh, recalling the faces of my comrades from back then.
Even those who possessed the power of beasts had been thrown into disarray by it; it was painfully obvious what would happen to ordinary, powerless people.
I turned my steps toward the bridge I had scouted earlier.
The warning sign still stood prominently on the bridge.
A crude warning crafted from a discarded wooden plank.
The bridge stood firm, spanning the waterway that emptied into the lake.
This was where I had to make my stand.
A spot connected to the lake where the water suddenly grew shallow.
There was no better place to restrict the movements of a serpent beast.
I slipped past the warning sign and stepped onto the bridge to assess the situation.
Whoosh—
Perhaps due to the rain, the river had swollen.
Despite the warning sign forbidding its use, the bridge was performing its duty faithfully, easily withstanding the raging currents and more than capable of supporting a man's weight.
Even when I intentionally swayed my body and jumped with all my might, it didn't let out so much as a single creak.
I couldn't understand why they had put up a [Do Not Enter] sign in the first place.
Could it be...?
A sudden thought crossed my mind.
What if they had blocked it off on purpose to keep people from leaving the village?
Could someone who had completely lost their mind and become a worshipper of the serpent beast have done this?
It was at that moment, as I stared at the warning sign with growing suspicion—
"Get off there this instant!"
An old man's shout pierced my ears.
"Are you out of your mind, boy? Do you have a death wish?"
A scrawny, frail-looking old man came stomping toward me, huffing with anger.
Without hesitation, he grabbed my hand and practically dragged me off the bridge.
How is he this strong...?
Contrary to his appearance, his grip was incredibly powerful.
The spot where his rough, heavily calloused hand had clamped down throbbed with a dull ache.
Blocking the path to the bridge, the old man placed his hands on his hips and glared at me from head to toe.
"How did you even get here!"
"By boat..."
Before I could even finish, the old man scowled and flared up.
"Has that old hag gone senile?! I told her repeatedly not to let any outsiders in!"
"..."
It seemed I had gotten myself entangled in something troublesome.
"Wait, if that's the case...?"
The deep furrow in the old man's brow relaxed slightly.
"You must have been starving this whole time, then?"
The old man nodded knowingly and continued.
"Well, of course. How could an outsider eat something that looks so grotesque? You look like the type who wouldn't listen even if someone shoved it in your face. Am I right?"
"Well... you're not wrong."
"Then, by any chance, do you also know what kind of bastard is living in that lake?"
An unexpected question.
The old man stared at me intently, then, as if making up his mind, grabbed both of my hands.
"Would you be willing to help me fish? If you do, I'll treat you to a feast. What do you say?"
"...Fishing?"
"Yes. And a legendary catch that will go down in history, at that."
He snorted to himself, as if realizing how absurd his own words sounded.
The old man had been searching for a way to deal with the serpent beast all on his own.
And his method was exactly what you'd expect a seasoned, veteran fisherman to come up with.
Ah. I see.
A sudden realization flashed through my mind.
The only person who had kept his sanity.
The person capable of sending a letter to the lord requesting aid.
The mysterious author of that letter was standing right before me, asking for help.
Beast fishing.
The old man began to explain his plan to catch the beast in earnest.
"Everything is already prepared. It's nothing dangerous for you. Once I hook that damn overgrown eel, you just have to throw the net over it, like scooping it up with a landing net."
With that, he pulled back a tarpaulin of oiled cloth covering the side of the waterway.
Beneath it lay a massive net, folded neatly, its true scale hard to measure at a glance.
It was clearly a net that would require three or four grown men to cast together.
I could easily handle it using the power of the beast, but there was no way the old man knew that.
Wondering how the old man usually managed on his own, I gave the net a trial throw.
Whoosh!
The net unfurled, cutting through the air.
The weights flew all the way to the far side of the river and sank to the bottom, and the taut net began to tighten around my fingers.
With this...!
The net was woven much tighter and stronger than I had expected.
While it might not completely subdue the serpent beast, it seemed more than enough to temporarily restrain its thrashing.
I pulled the net back in, folded it back into its original state, and spoke to the old man.
"Alright. But how do you plan to lure it all the way here?"
There was no reply.
I turned around to find the old man staring at me with his mouth agape and eyes wide.
He clearly hadn't expected me to cast that massive net all by myself.
"So, how are you going to hook it?"
Nowhere did I see a fishing rod or bait suited for a beast of that size.
This was a creature that fed on waterlogged human corpses.
I asked with the intention of refusing if he planned to use a corpse as bait or dig up a grave.
If it came to that, it would be better to just proceed with my original plan.
Snapping out of his daze, the old man told me to follow him with a grim expression.
The old man's house was located in the center of the village.
Inside the dark, unlit building, the musty smell of long-neglected clutter mingled with the damp air, creating a strange, heavy atmosphere.
Fwoosh.
The wick dipped in the oil jar caught fire, crackling softly.
"Step back a bit."
Following his instruction, I took a few steps back, revealing a hidden trapdoor beneath a stained carpet.
The rusted hinges shrieked as the cellar door swung open. I carefully followed the old man as he slowly made his way down the stairs.
"Watch your step. Don't trip."
The heavy scent of oil hung in the air.
Clink.
The sound of clashing metal echoed through the dark.
"It's... somewhere here... Ah, there."
The flame caught a torch mounted on the wall, instantly illuminating the cellar.
And what was revealed...
A sharp barb protruding from the end of a straight shaft.
Barbed blades, curved backward, gleamed under the flickering firelight.
And piled beside it was an seemingly endless heap of iron chains.
A harpoon as thick as a child's torso loomed in the bright light.