The Red Moon Rises
"There is a place that fits your conditions, actually."
"There is?"
"There's an unused training ground a little ways from the village. We used it often in the old days, but once the monster attacks got too frequent, they moved the grounds inside the walls. It should still be standing."
"I see. How far?"
"Even at a leisurely walk, about ten minutes."
"Close enough. All right — let's head there."
They were just starting to move when the light falling over them shifted, bleeding slowly into red.
"What the…"
"…!"
Lois snapped his gaze to the sky. A full moon hung there, dyed the color of blood, and his mouth fell open before he could stop it.
"You've got to be kidding me…!"
"That's a red moon!"
The Hero, with all her years in the field, understood at once what it meant. Only Sylphy — who looked as though he had lived a life far removed from any battlefield — failed to grasp it, tilting his head in confusion.
"W-what does a red moon mean, exactly? Why have you both gone so pale…?"
He could tell by instinct that it was nothing good. He simply didn't have the knowledge to name it. Anyone who had never lived by the sword would have had no reason to see one, and no reason to know.
The Hero's brow furrowed.
"A red moon is the proof of a ritual. Anyone inside the ritual's boundary sees the moon as red. It isn't actually red — it only looks that way because you're standing within range."
"S-so, um… what does that actually mean? What kind of ritual is this?"
"What they want in the end varies from person to person. But the process of the Red Moon Ritual is always the same."
"Which is?"
Cold sweat slid down Lois's back.
"The conversion of life into mana. It dissolves everyone within range into raw magical energy. What they intend to do with that mana, I couldn't say."
"Damn it — then mind control would have been enough…! What was the point of going to the trouble of using something as difficult as mental corruption? Weren't they trying to use these people as limbs of the cult?"
"You already know the answer, Olivia."
He let out a small sigh.
"There isn't a single person in this religion who thinks rationally. They're not in their right minds. And if they're going this far…"
"Then it's one of the three cult leaders…!!"
The Death God Cult was represented by three high leaders in total. The Hero had cut one of them down during her journey to slay the Demon King, which left two. Not that the number stayed reduced for long — given enough time, they had a peculiar way of crawling back out of the woodwork like cockroaches, and the three seats would fill themselves again.
"Hurry! If they've started the ritual, this isn't a joke — people's lives are at stake!"
A deep, grinding rumble tore through the night. The gates of Half Village were swinging open.
Gates that had no business opening at this hour.
"…!"
The Hero's face tightened.
"Monsters. Monsters are coming."
She had no proper detection technique to speak of — she simply felt it, the way a body feels a blade before the mind catches up. The gates opening at just the right moment. Monsters arriving at just the right moment. No matter how he turned it over, they had noticed the intrusion.
For a split second, the possibility flashed through him that Sylphy had lured them here. But the half-elf's face was raw, genuine panic — the look of someone who had no idea what was happening. At least their goodwill had not been betrayed. Small mercies.
"Olivia. Please head for the training ground at once."
"What? But—!"
"If a cult leader really is there, I will have a hard time handling it. You, however, can win. I'll deal with the monsters here. The faster you finish, the less work I'll have."
"…"
"But please be careful. Just because mental corruption didn't take last time is no reason to let your guard down. Your body is in poor condition right now. In the worst case, I would have to face you myself. …I don't want to die just yet."
He offered the last of it with an awkward smile, and the Hero smiled back.
"Got it. I'll be back as fast as I can…!"
And with that, she moved — gone from the spot as if she had simply ceased to be there.
"Sylphy. You can come out now. I don't think hiding is going to help."
"…I-I'm not used to fighting, you know."
"You may not have been in real battles. But you've trained. Haven't you?"
"H-how did you know that?"
"Your hands don't lie."
"…"
The hands didn't match the feminine cast of his face — they were thick with calluses, the kind a person only earns day after day, and the particular texture of them left no doubt. Those were an archer's hands. Elves had always been famous for the bow, besides.
A guttural snarl ripped through the dark.
"There are a lot of them."
"Way too many…!"
Lois flicked his fingers, and flame bloomed in time with the motion, catching the monsters and burning them down. But Half Village did not have only one gate. If they came pouring through the others, he would not be able to hold them alone.
"What do you think you're doing!"
"…!"
"C-Chief!"
He was short. The distinctive beard only made it plainer — dwarf blood ran in him, and it showed.
"How dare you interfere with a ritual for the God of Death! Sylphy!"
"Chief! That's not it! You're being controlled right now!"
"What kind of nonsense is that?! I treasured you like my own family, and this is how you repay me?"
"Chief…"
"It's no use. Making someone under mental corruption aware of it is extremely difficult. Defeating the caster — or tearing the ritual formula apart — is the fastest way. We'll have to wait for good news from Olivia."
Worse, trying to force the issue with someone already under mental corruption ran the risk of shattering their mind entirely. Anyone who resorted to that magic had, by that point, already abandoned the path of being human. The law itself drew a hard line between the two: the punishment for mind control and the punishment for mental corruption were not even in the same tier.
"The monsters are coming!"
"Ahh… this is the God of Death's blessing itself…"
"I offer this life to the God of Death…"
"God of Death…"
Damn it.
If the villagers had even tried to resist, it would have been something. Instead they stood waiting, as if death itself were salvation. Protecting every last one of them from the monsters on top of that was going to be brutal.
"Kh—!"
Something streaked through the air — once, twice, three times — and punched clean through the skulls of the monsters charging the villagers. Lois's eyes went wide. Sylphy gave him an awkward little smile.
"Ah. I have my circumstances. So… yeah?"
"You — that bow…"
He hadn't been carrying one. It had simply appeared in his hands. A bow and arrows shaped from mana?
Every elf had a bow of their own. The number who could form one from mana, however, was vanishingly small. And those vanishingly few elves were…
"Don't interfere!!"
"We're trying to offer ourselves to the God of Death! Why are you stopping us, Sylphy?!"
"That's not it! All of you are— ugh! Let go of me! The monsters—! Lois!"
"Can't be helped."
"Huh?"
"Saving people comes first, doesn't it?"
He set a hand over his chest. The monsters were many, and the villagers were not merely failing to resist — they were actively getting in the way of the people trying to help them. They believed, without a shred of doubt, that this was their own will. From where they stood, the strange ones were Lois and Sylphy; the ones behaving outside all common sense were Lois and Sylphy. Inside their heads, the world was already complete. Talking them out of it was never going to be easy.
Spirit Integration
Flame surged — not blooming from his fingertips, but born of his hands themselves, until those hands took the shape of fire. He was not borrowing the power of flame. For a moment he was flame, and he swept through every monster that had entered the village, burning them as he passed.
"Whoa…! That firepower — that precision…! As expected of a Spiritist… Wait. Lois?"
He turned his hand, and water gathered around the villagers' bodies, binding them in place where they stood.
"Kh—!"
"Ah—!"
The restrained villagers lost their balance and went down in a heap. Sylphy stared at him, stunned.
"Fire and water spirit arts at the same time… and not even low-level ones. You're using that much power simultaneously? And that body of yours…"
"Just as you have your circumstances."
Lois smiled, a little awkwardly.
"I have mine."
Pain rolled through his chest. He would not last long. All he could do was hope the Hero finished the caster and made it back before then. If this dragged on, the power would swallow him instead.
"Sylphy — let's close the gates first. While I hold them off, the gates—"
A thunderous crash split the air, and a monster heaved itself into view.
A low, grinding snarl rolled out of it.
"A-a high-ranking monster! A Basilisk!"
Sylphy's mouth fell open. He was trembling, looking at it as if he had never seen anything like it in his life.
"What could they possibly need a high-ranking monster for…"
Simple bad luck was not an answer that held up. Lois looked at the thing. Don't tell me they used mental corruption on the monsters too? That would make the caster far more skilled than he had imagined. Even if they shut the gates, a creature like this would smash straight through them.
"All right, then. Let's see what you've got."
She ran through the forest, and in what felt like a single breath she was there — the abandoned training ground, waiting in the dark.
Even if Lois and Sylphy gave it everything they had, the villagers would be no help at all. They would only get in the way. Someone could die. That was not acceptable. However wretched her heart was — however little she felt she had the right to put the word Hero in her mouth — she could not stand by and watch people die.
The moment she arrived, she read the flow of mana and pinned the location down.
Lois's hunch was right.
Just as expected. It was around here. All she had to do was destroy the formula.
She lifted her wooden sword, fully intending to simply smash the ground itself. Hunting for the center of a ritual circle was a waste of time. Level the whole area, and the formula would collapse on its own.
"Whoops. That's a problem."
"…!"
The attacks came in a tight, rattling burst, and she swept the wooden sword around, knocking them aside.
"What — you blocked that with a wooden sword? Amaz—"
"…"
The mark stitched into his clothes. Death God Cult. That was all the confirmation she needed.
She was already moving. The cultist didn't even seem to register that she had closed the distance.
The wooden sword took him through the middle and split him in half. Blood fountained — and then the body darkened to black and vanished, and she blinked, faintly surprised.
This was…
"So hot-tempered… I am the leader of the Death God Cult—"
She was already stepping in.
"Wait — hold on—!"
She cut him down again. Again he blackened and vanished. And again he stood in front of her, entirely unharmed.
"Are you a beast or what? Hacking away like that without even knowing my ability—"
"It's a Voodoo Clone."
"…!"
Forbidden magic that absorbed lives to lengthen one's own. Sacrifice a single human life, and you gained one extra life in return — though there was an upper limit to how many could be stored, and anyone who had faced the technique before would not find it easy to fake a death or slip away with it. In an opening engagement, though — against someone meeting it for the first time — the surprise packed a real punch.
"You've fought the Death God Cult before, haven't you? You know about Voodoo Clones, and— ugh!!"
She cut him down again. Black. Gone.
"Do you not have a conversation function?!"
"No time. I'd rather save one more innocent person than listen to a villain's sob story."
Whatever his reasons, he was running a Red Moon Ritual and stacking Voodoo Clones on top of it. How many people had he killed to get here?
The way to break a Voodoo Clone was simple. As she'd said — there was a limit to the lives he could absorb. Which meant:
If you kill him until he dies, he dies.
The last one who'd used this had stayed dead on the thirteenth kill.
She tightened her grip on the wooden sword.
And with that, she threw herself at him again.